Vengeance Planning for Amateurs by Lee Winter

21 Feb, 2025

⭐⭐⭐⭐ 4 Stars

What a book! This one was such a fun romance story - it has one of the more interesting premises I've read in these. In VPfA, our two love interests are very much opposites. We have Olivia, our primary character, our main POV: a muffin baker who dropped out of college because she was conned by one of her exes, operating her own small local muffin baker business. Then, we have the love interest, Margaret. Margaret is an expert in Australian bushrangers (I have 0 idea what is the context of this throughout the entire book) and a renowned academic. Margaret ended up leaving academia after her wife passed away, working on her small bookstore business.

Olivia supplies muffins to Margaret's bookstore's cafe, and you can see where this is going. After some back-and-forths (not too friendly ones) between Olivia and Margaret via Margaret's eavesdropping on Olivia's chaotic book club sessions, the two start an interesting relationship.

I liked that this book had a fun adventure. Olivia winds up recruiting Margaret (albeit reluctantly, at first) as her 'henchperson' to help her with her mission to recover her stuffed penguin toy, which acted as an heirloom from her beloved grandmother. The mission eventually morphs into a big plot to execute revenge plans on all of Olivia's previous exes who have taken advantage of her.

Throughout all the scheming, you can slowly see the two's relationships growing, and it was super fun to see that. I read this one a lot more slowly (it usually takes me 2 to 3 days for a romance book at this length), and I think I appreciated the story even more. There were some moments, especially when it came to the two main character's monologues where I found to be sometimes awkwardly written? There were just a handful of those, so it didn't deter the experience that much.

I gravitate towards romance whenever I feel overwhelmed with the day-to-day stuff, and this one was a fun read! I can see myself re-reading this one down the line as a comfort read. Recommend!

[22/100] for #100DaysToOffload

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